This is a blog centering on Dr. Petrosino's course at The University of Texas at Austin entitled " EDC 365E Project Based Instruction in STEM Education." This is the capstone course in the UTeach Natural Sciences professional development sequence. It also serves as a forum for Dr. Petrosino's thoughts and ideas on Project Based Instruction and educational reform.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Class 11: 09/29/11-Big "P" v. Little "p"-Rivet&Krajcik 2004

“It breaks your heart. It is
designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything
else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and
evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to
face the fall alone.” ~A. Bartlett Giamatti

Dr. Petrosino is a big sports fan and last night was a big
night in baseball. Four key games meant the whole season to some teams. Tampa Bay Rays down 7 - 0 and then in the
last minutes of the game, they won. This
unsuspecting turn around shows the importance of perseverance, a great reminder
before we go to our practice teach.

Dr.
Petrosino next addresses comments about the class submitted by students,
specifically comments concerning how the class needs to have better
organization of time during lectures.
The class discussed these comments and Dr. Petrosino explained that he
will do his best to keep this feedback in mind during future planning.

Dr. Ann Rivit is a
professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on PBI, science reform,
content area literacy. Dr. Joe Krajcik
is a professor at Michigan State University.
He won a prestigious science education award. His background is in
chemistry. He was the graduate advisor
of Anne Rivet and our very own Dr. Cesar Delgado!

The
following PBI Science Features are
given in the presentation:

Active Construction (refers to engaging students
with a the task in thought-demanding
ways such as explaining, gathering evidence, generalizing, representing, and
applying ideas)

Situated Cognition (students make meaning through
interaction with the world and their interpretation)

Community of Practitioners (students learn ways of
knowing, what counts as evidence, how ideas are shared within the culture of
the discipline)

Discourse (Participation brings students
into the language of the community of practice)

Cognitive Tools (extend what students can do
and learn in that they provide opportunities for students to visualize and
explore phenomena that would not otherwise be possible in classrooms through
manipulating multiple dynamic representations).
Students can report findings, gather, analyzing, and interpreting information
and data. Also discussed is the
importance of providing opportunities for students to construct knowledge
through designing and constructing investigations or drawing conclusions.

Dr.
Petrosino goes on to discuss Big “P” v. Little “P” He gives the example, that a local New
Technology Network school, Manor New Tech High School, is mostly using Big “P”
on their campus. Big “P” incorporates ALL
of the aspects of the PBI Science Features, (listed above). This is no easy
task to achieve, however, good project based instructors will incorporate as
much as they can, in a fashion that is most comfortable and effective for them.

Little
“P” on the other hand can be fun, entertaining, and hands on, but are usually
done at the end of instruction as a summative assignment, and often do not meet
the requirements listed above. Many of
us have only experience Little “p” in our schooling.

The
study done by Rivet and Krajcik (2004) consisted of 24 teachers that taught
over 2,500 students in Detroit over a 4 year period. The purpose of this research was to address
science learning goals of balanced and unbalanced forces, simple and complex
machines, and mechanical advantage. Achievement
outcomes as measured by pre/post test, show significant and consistently high
learning gains, even as participation in the project include greater numbers of
teachers and students in successive enactments, and leadership of the
professional development support for this project transitioned from university
researchers to district teacher leaders.

These
results illustrate that materials that contextualize learning and support
student inquiry as part of an urban systematic reform effort can promote
learning of important and meaningful science content aligned with standards.

The
rest of class was spent working with our teaching teams on our rough drafts for
Lesson Plans due in the evening.

Each day in PBI different student(s) takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in
class. Today’s blog is brought to you through the collaboration of Claire, Lauren, and our TA Tara.

About Me

Dr. Petrosino is a graduate of Columbia University's Teachers College (MA, 1990) and received his PhD from Vanderbilt University (1998). He completed a post-doc at the University of Wisconsin where he was a member of the National Center for Improving Student Learning and Achievement in Mathematics and Science (NCISLA). In 1999 he accepted a Professorship at the University of Texas and received tenure in 2004. He holds the Elizabeth G. Gibb Endowed Fellowship in Mathematics Education. Dr. Petrosino has published over 20 peer reviewed journal articles, made over 100 national and international conference presentations and has supervised a dozen doctoral dissertations. He has received over 30 million dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education and the McDonnel Foundation for Cognitive Studies. He is a founding professor of the nationally recognized UTeach Natural Sciences preservice teacher education program. From July 2007 to August 2009 he served as the Assistant to the Superintendent in the Hoboken School District.